Our Wedding!

So, I am back dating this post to keep this as kind of a timeline of our first year! I Eric and I got married on November 2nd, 2013 and it went without a hitch! We seriously got so lucky. Everyday had been gloomy and rainy and cold, but the day of our wedding stuck out as the one 72 degree day amongst a sea of >50 degree days. :)

We were scheduled to get married at 10:20 in the morning. I was so nervous that I woke up at 5:30 and went to the gym to get the jitters out! For anyone who doesn't know me, that might sound strange, but trust me, it's normal :)

You know how there are those days when your hair will NOT do what you say? Well, this day was the opposite. I was half asleep and nervous out of my skull, so when my hair turned out amazing (good enough for me, that is) after only 3 tries on the curling iron, I was pretty dang sure that the hair gods were helping me out. haha As you can see in the pic, I was pretty relieved and surprised at this. 

     I remember getting there early with the family of Eric's that were directly involved in the sealing. Eric was pretty cool but I was having a hard time keeping my foot from tapping. 
     Once Cynthia and I got into the dressing area of the temple, I started getting more relaxed. I had already worn my dress before in front of Eric. 
The real stressful part was waiting with Eric in the celestial room knowing what we were about to do. Getting married is a huge deal! Obviously I had a grasp on that before, but it seems so much huger when you are moments away from the reality of marriage. Eric just kind of laughed at me (as usual) and said that he was a bit nervous too. Sitting there being nervous together was less stressful than being a solitary bundle of nerves. That's what marriage is about right? Sharing each other's hopes and fears, making life less daunting in each other's company.
     The sealing ended up being really sweet and simple, just the way I like it. So many of our close family and friends were in the room with us. Our family friend Robin Jenkins had visited Utah and came to the sealing so that my mom (and my self as it turned out) could feel more at home. I used to work with Robin and play with her daughter back home in California, so seeing her in the crowd made me feel much more represented in the room. 

After the ceremony we were able to gather all of our friends and family in attendance and take photos together. I felt so blessed being able to spend this day with so many loved ones. Eric's cousin Catherine took Kirby (my trusty Canon) for the day and got some amazing shots of all of us.
After we finished with the whole dang family, Catherine took Eric and I around the temple grounds where we got some photos that we will cherish for life! Eric looked so handsome in his uniform. Like a real life prince charming <3

We all went over to the Lion House afterwards and had an amazing lunch with everyone there. Unfortunately I don't have the pictures for the luncheon done yet! So that will have to be another post ;)

After we were able to have a few hours of down time we had the open house at Eric's family's church. The decorator absolutely transformed the cultural hall into exactly what I had pictured in my mind. Eric and I always wanted a down home, classy wedding with tasty food. We had a dress your own cheesecake and brownies bar with fruit, candy and various syrups. We served lemonade, but Natalie was kind enough to go get me, the exhausted bride, a soda from the local 7-11! (That part - not so classy, but very necessary!)
What I hadn't mentioned before was that Eric's siblings surprised us with an impromptu performance of "Kiss the Girl," from the Little Mermaid. They reprized the routine at the open house and all of the little kids LOVED it. Eric loved it because he didn't have to go up on stage again :) 

Eric and I cut the cake and shoved it in each other's faces - as its tradition - we were pretty non aggressive about it. We're cute like that I guess... :) After the cutting of the cake we shared our first dance. I had kind of an "Oh Crud!" moment, because we had not even thought about the first dance. And slow dancing isn't really something we've done before. So our first dance was really kind of legit in that sense. 
I totally understand why people do the "first dance" because it was this amazing moment of realizing that we were married while swaying in time to our favorite song. 

After the dance we packed up, put on my cute wedding hoodie, and headed out to the car! Eric' siblings had gone CRAZY. I recommend you read what it says on the windshield. Haha that was not the worst of it either. We had two days of downtime before we headed off on our Honeymoon. After we finish uploading the pics, I will have to make a post about it. Kauai was the most amazing experience ever!